


Heartless

by Prince_Moriarty



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_Moriarty/pseuds/Prince_Moriarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a heart. This truth is undeniable.</p><p>But it didn't start out this way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartless

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a heart. This truth is undeniable.

But it didn’t start out that way.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

For Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, the conception of their second son is a gift. He’s their little miracle baby, conceived seven years after their first, long after the doctors told them they would be unable to have another. Mycroft will have a little brother or sister, and Mr. and Mrs. Holmes will have another child to love and cherish.

When Sherlock is born, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes are thrilled. He’s perfect, with ten fingers and ten toes and a crinkly red face. His heart is detached from the cardiac cord and placed in a little handmade heartlamp. The dim red light that thrums and pulses with the beats of their new baby’s heart reassures them that they have not imagined him into existence.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Even in his infancy, it’s clear that Sherlock is an inquisitive little boy. His gaze is discerning, crystalline, his eyes focusing on the most minute details. Even when looking at the dancing mobile above his crib, it seems that his gaze is stronger in its intensity than would ever be expected in an infant.

As soon as he is able, Sherlock is first crawling and then toddling all over their house, examining everything he can see with his argentate eyes, getting into trouble. His parents pick him up when they find him covered in flour or playing with wires, somewhat amused but worried enough that childproofing the house as much as possible doesn’t quite put their minds to rest. Still, as long as Sherlock’s heart remains safe, everything will be alright.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

The family pet is an Irish Setter named Redbeard. He’s only a puppy when Sherlock is born, and the two take to each other quickly. By the time Sherlock makes the transition from a crib to a bed, Redbeard is sleeping with him every night, awash in the heartlamp’s glow. The fast friends explore the house together, and it’s with Redbeard that Sherlock learns how to giggle.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Seven years his senior, Mycroft is Sherlock’s world. He races after his older brother with Redbeard at his heels, hoping for his brother’s affection. Mycroft grants it, allowing Sherlock to sit on his lap when he completes his horrifyingly-advanced schoolwork or studies his political science textbooks. He even reads to him at times, running his fingers through Sherlock’s silky curls.

Sherlock loves his older brother, and when he’s around him, the little heartlamp glows more brightly.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes like to entertain guests on occasion. A few times a year, family and friends come over for dinner. After the meal, they gather in the living room and exchange stories over glasses of cheap wine and sparkling apple cider.

Invariably, the conversation turns to the Holmes boys’ hearts. After all, the development of a child’s heart is very important, and they simply _must_ be kept in the loop. And so the heartlamps are brought out.

The guests coo over Sherlock’s heart in particular. How brightly it glows! Such a fine heart, so well developed in a child so young . . . why, his heart is beautiful! Oh, make sure to keep his little heart safe, we wouldn’t want to endanger its development, now would we? No, certainly not.

The glow of Mycroft’s heart is dim by comparison. The guests have nice things to say about it, but it doesn’t capture their interest the way that Sherlock’s does.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Sherlock’s heart stays at home when he begins primary school. His parents simply refuse to take the risk of it being lost or damaged while at school. Their son’s heart would not be trampled under foot.

Still, his schoolteacher mentions to Mr. And Mrs. Holmes that Sherlock must have a noteworthy heart. After all, he’s such a sweet little boy, if a bit clueless about appropriately timing his observations. She commends them on taking such good care of it.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Thirteen year old Mycroft is still Sherlock’s world. The younger boy likes to come into Mycroft’s room after school to have Mycroft read to him, but he begins to acquiesce less and less. He stops running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, and Sherlock doesn’t understand why his older brother has grown so cold towards him.

Sometimes he cries himself to sleep. He knows something must be terribly wrong with him for Mycroft to treat him like this. And Mycroft is _always_ right, so Sherlock surely must be vile.

He never considers that Mycroft may be wrong for the first time in their short lives.

When he cries, his little shoulders shake and the heartlamp’s light quivers in time with his sobs.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

When Sherlock is seven years old and Mycroft is fourteen, the heart goes missing from Sherlock’s heartlamp.

‘Sweetheart, where’s your heart?’ Mummy’s eyes are wide with concern and she seems close to tears.

‘I don’t know, Mummy.’

‘You didn’t take it from the lamp, did you, sweetie? You can tell me. I won’t be cross. Just tell me so we can put it back.’

‘No, Mummy. Honest.’ Sherlock’s upturned face is earnest, but Mummy doesn’t seem to believe him.

Daddy’s face is stern and white when he gets home from work. Sherlock decides he doesn’t like it. He cries when Daddy spanks him (Daddy has never spanked him before) and yells at him to give up ‘the charade.’ When the bedroom door closes and Sherlock is left in the eerie darkness with no heartglow to keep him company, he sniffles and rubs his bottom. It’s the last time Sherlock will shed true tears for a quarter century.

Mycroft is silent throughout the ordeal.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Within a few weeks, it’s as if Sherlock Holmes never even had a heart to begin with.

By the time he realises Mycroft took it, he finds he doesn’t miss it and doesn’t care that he ever had one at all.

_Da-d-d— Silence. The blood thrums but nothing else._

His life becomes an endless cycle of boredom and a nearly-desperate search for mental stimulation. No longer is he the boy with a beautiful heart, he’s the boy who doesn't have one. Sherlock is only his brain and the vessel that carries it, with a caustic personality fit to alienate everyone around him. Not that it matters. He doesn’t have a heart and, as he’s constantly reminded by those in the know, that means he can’t possibly care.

At college, he finds opiates and cocaine. They’re a useful diversion. They keep him sane when he can’t find intellectual stimulation, and at times he can even pretend the chemicals rushing through his body are the product of the heart he’s missing. But the heroin lasts longer than the cocaine and he finds the addiction is more trouble than it’s worth. The funny thing is that he can’t find the will to stop.

He completes his graduate degree in chemistry. Without the goal of his degree to motivate him, his addiction spirals out of control. He meets Greg Lestrade one night when he’s strung out on speedballs. The man sees something worthwhile in him when no one has seen anything but a heartless bastard since he was seven years old. Soon, he gets an ultimatum: use, and no cases will be available to him.

He chooses the cases.

_Silence._

A case in Florida draws his attention and he goes.

There he meets one Mrs. Hudson, the wife of the accused. He reads her story in the lines of her face, the creases of her clothing, her movements, her possessions. The wife of an abusive husband, the leader of a drug cartel and murderer at that. She’s a former exotic dancer and a bit too fond of marajuana (or rather, what she likes to euphemise as her 'herbal soothers'), but a kindly woman who takes to Sherlock.

He admits to her that he doesn’t have a heart, but she just smiles and pats his cheek, telling him she doesn’t believe a word of it. When the evidence he brings to light in the trial of her husband insures that he is executed, she hugs him. She promises him that if he ever needs it, there will be a flat waiting for him in London.

For a moment, it’s almost as if he has his heart.

_Silence._

Nothing much changes for almost five years.

_Silence._

And then Dr. John Watson walks in the door of a laboratory at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

In a matter of seconds, Sherlock has laid the doctor’s life bare. It’s a test and John, unlike so many others, passes. He doesn’t turn away, doesn’t call Sherlock a freak or a heartless bastard. He calls him brilliant. He calls him fantastic.

If Sherlock had a heart, he’s sure it would be soaring.

_D-d—_

With John Watson by his side, Sherlock’s cases take on a new colour, a new vivid life. No longer are they merely diversions keeping him sane, the only thing making him feel alive, but it’s almost as if—

It’s almost as if he enjoys having John Watson by his side.

 _Oh_. Isn’t that curious?

_D-da-dum. D—_

A short, black-haired man is the one who tries to rip Sherlock’s life apart. Moriarty.

‘I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.’ Monosyllabic words bitten out by a crazed psychopath.

Sherlock nearly laughs. ‘I’ve been reliably informed I don’t have one.’

‘Ah, but we both know that’s not quite true.’

Isn’t it?

_Da-dum. Da-d—_

Only a few months later, Sherlock finds himself on the roof of St. Bart’s. The corpse of his obsessive yet fickle enemy is lying like a forgotten doll on the concrete, his brains blown out by his own hand. And yet, even with Moriarty dead, he hasn’t won. Moriarty has left him without an option and—

And—

Why is it that all these storeys above the ground he feels the need to cry, even for lack of a heart?

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Taking down Moriarty’s web proves a tedious task, but it’s one that Sherlock knows he must complete. It takes him two years, two arduous years, but John and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson are safe and it’s worth it. They are his world.

If not for his brother, he might not have made it out of Serbia alive. He was aware of the risk when he began his journey, but he chooses not to dwell on Mycroft’s involvement.

He’s reunited with John, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and dear old Baker Street and London. John attacks him, but he finds he doesn’t care. Something swells inside him and he’s not sure what it is, but Sherlock decides he likes it.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Harsh breathing, lips on lips. He’s crying. He hasn’t cried in years. His hands are fisted in John’s warm (hideous) jumper, and he’s sobbing against the man.

‘Please. I love you. John, I don’t—’ He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t have a heart, he can’t love, so why does he think he feels it? ‘I love you. I don’t _understand_. John, _I don’t understand_.’

And John is holding him and he feels _safe_.

‘I know. I know, Sherlock. I love you too.’

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

For the first time in twenty-seven years, Sherlock thinks that a heart might be worth having. If it means he can have John, he'll do anything, including crawl to his brother and grovel.

‘Why now, Sherlock?’

He doesn’t deign to answer.

With a sigh, Mycroft gets up from his desk and leaves the room. A moment later, he is back with a little metal case in his hands. He hands it to his little brother wordlessly.

Sherlock doesn’t look inside. It doesn't take a consulting detective's mental prowess to feel the lifeforce within its confines. He knows what the metal holds. 

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

He presents John with his heart. And John just smiles and tells him that he’s always had one, even if he was disconnected from it for a time. (He also says that Mycroft is a git who deserves to have his head kicked in). And John presents him with his own.

A couple's heartlamp stands bearing two weary but renewed hearts, lighting their room in 221B.

It’s perfect.

_Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum._

Sherlock Holmes does have a heart. This truth is undeniable.

But it took over a quarter century for him to believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you find an error, please point it out.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.
> 
> Thank you.


End file.
